Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes explains incredible 53-point effort vs. Florida
Yesterday at 08:27 AM
What a night for Vanderbilt women’s basketball star Mikayla Blakes. The Commodore freshman lit up the scoreboard with an SEC women's basketball record 53 points, leading No. 23 Vanderbilt to a thrilling 99-86 win over Florida on Thursday.
And like all great performances — Blakes wasn't even keeping track of her points.
“I don’t think I was that aware of the number,” Blakes told The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday. “I think I was just doing whatever my team needed me to do in that moment, which was get buckets.”
Mission accomplished.
Mikayla Blakes' stat line was ridiculous — 16 made field goals, 16 free throws, and a performance for the ages. Her scoring total ranks as the second-most by a freshman in Division I history, just one point shy of the 54 Elena Delle Donne dropped for Delaware back in 2010.
And here’s another fun fact: Blakes is the only player in all of Division I — men's or women's — to hit the 50-point mark this season. Her performance follows a 33-point explosion against then-No. 19 Alabama, proving she's got serious momentum. Before this, her season-high was 36 against Georgia on Jan. 2.
“I told the team in the locker room that Mikayla had one of the most incredible performances that I’ve ever seen as a coach, and I’ve coached a lot of really good players for a long time,” Vanderbilt head coach Shea Ralph said after the game. “And that’s not taking anything away from them. When you see a player like her do what she did tonight, sometimes she makes things that are really, really hard to do look really easy. That's the sign of someone who is just gifted.”
Blakes also tied the scoring record at Florida's Exactech Arena at O’Connell Center, a mark previously set by LSU men's basketball legend Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in the 1988-89 season.
She also shattered Vanderbilt's single-game scoring record, topping Khamil Pierre's 42-point mark set earlier this season against Evansville. To put the cherry on top, Blakes became the first Vanderbilt player in over two decades to record back-to-back 30-plus-point games. The hype around her is real, and she's proving why she deserves every bit of it.
Blakes' heroics propelled Vanderbilt (18-4, 5-3 SEC) to another huge win as they continue their push in the SEC standings.
Up next, Vanderbilt looks to keep rolling when they host Mississippi on Sunday.
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